Privacy policy

Last updated: 12 October 2026

1. Controller

The controller responsible for data processing on marina.direct and in the associated map service is:

IT Service Nietzsch, owner Jens Nietzsch
Borlinghausener Str. 11a, 34439 Willebadessen, Germany
Phone: +49 5646 943168
Email: info@marina-management.de

We have not appointed a data protection officer because there is no legal obligation to do so. For all questions regarding data protection, you can reach us using the contact details given above.

2. The key points in brief

• You can use the harbour guide without logging in. We do not set any cookies there and do not use any analytics, statistics or advertising services.
• Our servers do not store any access logs containing your IP address.
• Maps, search, water levels and notices to skippers run via our own map service. Your device only connects to our servers, never to third-party map providers.
• We process personal data above all when you send us something yourself (adding a harbour, taking over an entry, reporting an error) or use a user account for the ITN Marina Management App and the Bootspass (digital boat passport).
• We do not sell any data and do not pass it on for advertising purposes.

3. Hosting, server logs and protection against misuse

Hosting. marina.direct and our map service run on separate servers of a hosting service provider with its registered office and data centres in Germany. A data processing agreement pursuant to Art. 28 GDPR is in place with this provider.

No access logs. In order for a page, a map tile or a response to be delivered to your device, the server must briefly process your IP address and the technical details of the request (requested address, time, browser identifier). The storage of access logs and statistics is switched off on both servers. Your IP address is therefore not stored after delivery. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR; our legitimate interest is the technical provision of the service.

Protection against misuse. To prevent forms and logins from being used automatically on a mass scale, we count attempts per sender. For this purpose, we do not store the IP address itself but a hash value calculated from it, together with a counter and the time. The hash value is pseudonymised data. We use it exclusively for this limitation and delete it after 7 days at the latest. This applies to adding a harbour, applying to take over an entry, logging in to the administration area and logging in to a user account. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR; our legitimate interest is the security of the service.

4. Cookies and storage in the browser

The public pages of marina.direct (harbour guide, harbour pages, map, forms) do not set any cookies and do not store anything in the storage of your browser. No scripts, fonts or images from third-party providers are loaded.

Only the administration area of marina.direct, which is used exclusively by us and by persons authorised by us, sets a session cookie after login. It maintains the login, applies only to the administration area and is deleted when the browser is closed. This cookie is strictly necessary for the requested service; pursuant to § 25(2) No. 2 TDDDG (German Telecommunications Digital Services Data Protection Act), no consent is required for it.

The privacy information of the app explains which data the ITN Marina Management App stores on your device.

5. Map, search, water levels, notices to skippers and routes (map service)

We provide maps and nautical information via our own map service. It runs on a separate server of the same host (see section 3) and is operated exclusively by us. It is used by the map on marina.direct and the ITN Marina Management App.

Map display. Your browser or the app loads map tiles, fonts and map symbols only from our servers. In doing so, your IP address and the map section displayed are processed technically but not stored. Our server obtains the map content itself from the following sources and caches it without any reference to you:

• OpenFreeMap (base map and relief, data © OpenStreetMap contributors)
• OpenSeaMap (seamarks)
• Aerial images from the state surveying offices of the German federal states
• PEGELONLINE of the German Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration (water levels)
• ELWIS of the German Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration (notices to skippers for inland navigation)

These providers only receive the IP address of our server, no information about you.

Search. We search for harbours, locks and bridges in our own data. Only if you expressly request a search for places or bodies of water does our server forward the search term entered, without your IP address and without any further information, to the service Nominatim of the OpenStreetMap Foundation, St John’s Innovation Centre, Cowley Road, Cambridge, CB4 0WS, United Kingdom. An adequacy decision of the European Commission exists for the United Kingdom. We cache search terms and results without reference to your person for a maximum of 60 days. Please do not enter any information about persons in the search.

Routes. For a route calculation, the ITN Marina Management App transmits start, destination and waypoints, the dimensions of your boat (length, beam, draught, air draught) as well as speed and travel time per day to the map service. The request comes from the app’s server, not directly from your device, and contains no name and no account data. The map service calculates the route, returns it and does not store it. It only counts how many requests each connected app makes per day. Saved trips are kept in your user account (section 8).

Location. Your device only determines your location if you tap “My location” and confirm the prompt from your browser or device. On marina.direct, it is only displayed in the browser and is not transmitted to us. If you use it in the app as the starting point of a route, it is transmitted as a route point as described above.

The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (provision of the map and the nautical information) and, insofar as you have a route calculated, Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (use of the service you have requested).

6. Adding a harbour, taking over an entry, reporting errors

Adding a harbour and taking over an entry. If you add a harbour or apply to take over an existing entry, we process your name, your email address, your role at the harbour and your comments, as well as the information and photos relating to the harbour. We use them to check the entry, to reply to you and to enable you to maintain the entry.

To protect against misuse, you first receive an email with a confirmation link. Until you confirm, we store your information and photos for a maximum of 48 hours; after that, they are deleted automatically. When you submit, your browser also solves a small computational task that makes automated entries more difficult. It runs entirely on our pages, without cookies and without third-party services.

We do not publish your personal information as the submitter. After our review, only the information about the harbour is published (see section 7).

Reporting errors. You can report incorrect or outdated harbour information via the ITN Marina Management App. For this purpose, we store the type of error, the correct value, your message and, if you provide it, your email address for queries. You can also report errors to us by email.

Photos. We re-save uploaded photos. In doing so, embedded metadata such as the location where the photo was taken (GPS), camera and time of capture are removed. Please do not upload any photos in which persons are recognisable, and only upload photos for which you hold the necessary rights. We check every photo before publication.

The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (processing of your request) and Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (a reliable, up-to-date harbour guide). We delete the information 12 months after processing has been completed, unless statutory retention obligations apply. If you have taken over the maintenance of an entry, we store your contact details for as long as you look after the entry.

7. Harbour information in the harbour guide

The harbour guide describes harbours as facilities: name, location, address, public contact details of the harbour (phone, email, website), facilities, berths, depths, opening hours, prices, description and photos. This information originates from

• OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, Open Database License),
• publicly accessible sources such as the websites of harbours, clubs, municipalities and tourism associations, which we evaluate and check,
• information that harbours or users have entered or reported themselves.

We only publish contact details if they are recognisably assigned to the harbour as a facility (e.g. harbour master’s office, club, business). We do not adopt private telephone numbers or personal email addresses of individuals. If a contact detail nevertheless contains the name of a person because it is at the same time the name of the business, the legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR; our legitimate interest and that of the users is a complete, reliable harbour guide.

Harbours and data subjects may at any time request the rectification or removal of information and object to the processing, via the harbour’s page or by email to the address given in section 1.

8. User account and Bootspass (ITN Marina Management App)

The ITN Marina Management App uses marina.direct as its central user account. With an account, you log in to the app, connect with the harbours of which you are a customer and keep your Bootspass.

Account data. Email address, first name and surname, password (stored only as a non-reversible hash value), language, account status, time of email confirmation, registration and last login. We also store which harbours you have connected your account to (harbour and your customer number there) and via which connected app you logged in and when.

Bootspass. In the Bootspass, you can store information about your boats, for example:

• Name, boat type, manufacturer, model, year of construction, dimensions, weight, home port and flag
• Registration or licence number, hull identification number (HIN), MMSI, call sign and ATIS code
• Insurer, insurance number and expiry date of the insurance
• an emergency contact
• Engines, equipment, maintenance, checklists and logbook (trips, crew, weather, notes)
• Documents (e.g. registration certificate, proof of insurance) and photos
• saved trips with route points

You decide for yourself which information you enter. Documents and photos are not publicly accessible.

Information about other persons. If you enter an emergency contact or crew members, we also process their data. Please inform these persons about this. In this respect, the legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR; the legitimate interest lies in safety on board and a complete logbook.

Disclosure to harbours and QR pass. A harbour only sees your Bootspass if you connect your account with this harbour or expressly send it the Bootspass. The harbour then receives the information you have released and processes it under its own responsibility. If you generate a QR pass, anyone who scans the code can see the information you have selected for this code. You can revoke a QR pass at any time; the code will then no longer work.

Legal basis and duration. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (user agreement for the account and Bootspass). We store the data until you delete your account. You can do this at any time in the app; in doing so, we delete the account with all boats, documents, photos and trips. You can download a copy of your Bootspass data in the app beforehand.

9. Recipients and connected systems

Only the following parties receive personal data:

• Our hosting service provider with its registered office and data centres in Germany, as processor for hosting and sending emails (sections 3 and 10). We will tell you the name of the provider on request.
• Harbours with which you connect your account or to which you send your Bootspass, to the extent released by you (section 8). The harbours are themselves responsible for any further processing.
• OpenStreetMap Foundation only the search term of an express search for places or bodies of water, without your IP address (section 5).
• Authorities, if we are legally obliged to do so.

Connected systems. We make the published harbour information available via a secured interface to connected systems, in particular the ITN Marina Management App and the harbours’ ITN Marina Management System. These systems only receive data from your user account if you log in there with your account or connect it with a harbour, and only to the extent required by the respective function.

We do not sell any data and do not pass it on for advertising purposes.

10. Email communication and administration access

Emails from us. We send confirmation links, feedback on entries and messages regarding your account via the mail server of our hosting service provider. Replies to these and emails you write to us end up in our mailbox with the same provider. We only use them to deal with your request. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) or (f) GDPR. After completion, we delete the messages unless they must be retained by law as commercial or business letters (up to 6 or 10 years pursuant to § 257 HGB (German Commercial Code) and § 147 AO (German Fiscal Code)).

Administration access. The administration area of marina.direct is used only by us and by persons authorised by us. For these accounts, we store the email address, name, password hash value and, if set up, the two-factor authentication data. We log changes to harbour entries, accounts and settings with the time and the person acting, so that interventions remain traceable. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (security and traceability). We delete these log entries after 24 months.

11. Retention periods at a glance

12. Your rights and right to lodge a complaint

You have the following rights vis-à-vis us:

• access to your data stored by us (Art. 15 GDPR),
• rectification of inaccurate data (Art. 16 GDPR),
• erasure (Art. 17 GDPR),
• restriction of processing (Art. 18 GDPR),
• data portability (Art. 20 GDPR).

Right to object pursuant to Art. 21 GDPR. If we process data on the basis of legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR), you may object to this processing at any time on grounds relating to your particular situation. We will then no longer process the data unless we demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds which override your interests, or the processing serves the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

Insofar as processing is based on your consent, you may withdraw it at any time with effect for the future (Art. 7(3) GDPR). For all matters, please use the contact details given in section 1.

Right to lodge a complaint. You may lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority (Art. 77 GDPR). The authority competent for us is the Landesbeauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit Nordrhein-Westfalen (State Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information of North Rhine-Westphalia), Kavalleriestraße 2–4, 40213 Düsseldorf.

13. Further mandatory information

Transfer to third countries. We process your data in data centres in Germany. The only transfer outside the EU is the search term of an express search for places or bodies of water to the OpenStreetMap Foundation in the United Kingdom, for which an adequacy decision of the European Commission exists (section 5).

No automated decisions. We do not make any decisions based solely on automated processing that produce legal effects concerning you (Art. 22 GDPR), and we do not create any profiles.

Obligation to provide data. You are not obliged to provide us with any data. Without an email address, however, we cannot confirm an entry or application, and without an email address and password we cannot create a user account.

Changes. We amend this privacy policy if our service or the legal situation changes. The version published here at any given time applies.